Friday, August 11, 2017

After and Before Fore Lake Recreation Area, Simply RVing Around

It may seem like a strange title, but this little sojourn really was "after" our first visit to Fore Lake Recreation Area, and "before" our second visit. We had to leave the forest after two weeks anyway, and merely by coincidence, we received an offer from another Facebook user and semi-famous YouTube personality, Lidia Soler of the Simply RVing channel. But before I get into that, I want to discuss another reason we decided to head for Florida when we did.


Sharon's sister, Bonnie, had already come to Florida after the holidays, and was roaming around visiting friends and using time-share weeks and motels during January and February. We hadn't originally planned on connecting with her, but with the sewer issues in Louisiana, the fact that we had completed everything we could do there, and our hosts expecting more visitors, we decided to leave early. That gave us plenty of time to get to Florida in time to meet up with Sharon's sister. (You can click on any picture to enlarge it, and then simply X out of it to return to the blog.)

Sharon, Bonnie, and Angel at Inverness on February 28th.

Half way through our first visit to Fore Lake her sister drove up from Orlando and picked Sharon up to go spend some time with her where she was staying. That gave me about a week of solitude. On the day that we needed to leave Fore Lake, the girls drove up again so Sharon could ride to our new destination with me, both to help navigate, and see where it was. Her sister followed in her rental car so she could also see where it was, since she would be leaving again with Sharon, and then bringing her back at the end of her stay in Florida.

Our RV parked at our host's property south of Inverness, FL.

After we arrived at our new destination south of Inverness, Sharon again left with her sister until the last day of February. Her sister was flying back to Indiana on March 1st. So I spent the better part of another week by myself at our host's property, and house-sat for her while they were gone with some other company, until Sharon returned. We were not able to join them on an outing because we have Angel, and couldn't leave him for that long. For that and other reasons we didn't get to spend near as much time with our host as we had hoped to, but maybe there will be another time.


Our host's property from the other end of their lot.

Our host's property was beautiful...a very nice home on a huge country lot (probably about 5 acres) of mostly beautiful lawn, but also with a small wooded area, a beautiful old moss-covered tree, and nicely landscaped with other features and amenities. Once there, we didn't have to go out for anything for over a week. We made sure our tanks were refreshed and we were stocked up on supplies before arriving, and it all worked out very well.


Angel in the woods at Lidia's.

The weather was beautiful during our late February stay, with gentle breezes in the 70s and low 80s, and evenings cool enough we didn't need air conditioning. During the day, we simply opened the big windows on each side of our living room, turned on the Fantastic fan over the bed, and enjoyed the nice breezes. With no trees to shade our solar panels, our trailer provided sufficient power to meet our needs in the RV. This was our normal routine everywhere we went until nearly mid-May, when the humidity started to make it uncomfortable, but by then, we had power available. (More on that in a later post.)

A beautiful moss-covered oak tree at our hosts's property south of Inverness, FL.

Behind the property was a huge cattle farm on gently rolling grassy hills so clean that it looked more like a golf course. In fact nearly all the properties in this area look like golf course properties, even though they are not on a golf course. The gently rolling hills and beautiful yards just make it seem that way.

We were also able to enjoy many colorful sunsets while staying there, but we didn't capture them all in photos. The one below is an example that we captured one evening while out walking with Angel.

One of many sunsets we enjoyed at Inverness.

Another well-known YouTuber, Lidia's friend Louis of the Rolling Earth Ship channel, was there for a visit in his van, and another YouTuber, CoolCat Carolena, stopped by for a few days while we were there...and of course, Lidia's son, Christian (also known as Papa Smurf) was there, too, although we didn't get to do much socializing with any of them. We were introduced to all and had a short chat, but that was about all. In fact, on the day we left, they were all gone... out enjoying life. However, by that time our holding tanks were full, and our fresh water nearly empty, so we had no choice. We returned to Fore Lake again, refreshing our tanks on the way in. But I will talk about our second visit in the next post.

On the way back, we passed Three Flags Resort on Hwy 44, a place we had stayed a couple of times in past years, as Coast to Coast members. We hardly recognized the place after nearly 24 years! What used to be a two-lane road the last time we visited, is now a four-lane major thoroughfare connecting Inverness with The Villages, Leesburg and other cities farther east. And from the looks of the resort, it also has greatly improved. It wasn't much more than a nice campground when we were there last, but it now looks like a RV resort ought to look!


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